Springtails, small bugs often found crawling through leaf litter and garden soil, are expert jumpers. Inspired by these hopping hexapods, roboticists have made a walking, jumping robot that pushes the boundaries of what small robots can do. The research glimpses a future where nimble microrobots can crawl through tiny spaces, skitter across dangerous ground, and sense their environments without human intervention.

Researchers are looking underfoot to uncover the mysterious past of Mars: Martian regoliths in the soil. Their water storage capabilities may help us understand the change in water on Mars over time.

Researchers find that parents show patterns of brain connectivity that oppose age-related changes.

Researchers discovered evidence for human habitation of rainforests 150,000 years ago. This pushes back the oldest known evidence of humans in rainforests by more than double the previously known estimate.

With ideal conditions and strategic pacing and drafting, Kenyan Faith Kipyegon is on the brink of hitting the fabled track and field milestone, a new study suggests. The authors are now calling for a staged ‘Breaking 4’ event to help her do it.

New research has revealed how massive ancient glaciers acted like giant bulldozers, reshaping Earth’s surface and paving the way for complex life to flourish. By chemically analyzing crystals in ancient rocks, the researchers discovered that as glaciers carved through the landscape, they scraped deep into the Earth’s crust, releasing key minerals that altered ocean chemistry. This process had a profound impact on our planet’s composition, creating conditions that allowed complex life to evolve.

New observations of 2024 YR4 conducted with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) and facilities around the world have all but ruled out an impact of the asteroid with our planet. The asteroid has been closely monitored in the past couple of months as its odds of impacting Earth in 2032 rose to around 3%, the highest impact probability ever reached for a sizable asteroid. After the latest observations, the odds of impact dropped to nearly zero.

New research suggests that all five subregions of Africa will breach the 1.5 C climate change threshold — the limit stipulated by the Paris Agreement — by 2040 even under low emission scenarios.

Hormones may be leveraged to treat and prevent signs of aging such as wrinkles and hair graying, according to a new study.

Making enemies isn’t random. Traits like emotional instability, aggression, and disruptive behavior early in life can lead to antagonistic relationships. Research on students aged 9-14 found that negative behaviors, such as lack of empathy, increase the likelihood of mutual antagonisms, a pattern seen across genders and school levels. Emotionally struggling students were 35% more likely to develop enemies, showing that how we manage emotions and interact with others early on can have lasting social and emotional effects.